


Pigs may fly...

by LlawenGwaed



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: #takebackthetag, Episode: s01e06 The Cloud, Episode: s04e03 Day of Honor, Episode: s07e16-17 Workforce, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:29:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29906655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LlawenGwaed/pseuds/LlawenGwaed
Summary: Some words we take to heart.Some change our whole lives.B'Elanna recovers her lost memories during workforce. Tom's logs are helpful- and personal.
Relationships: Tom Paris/B'Elanna Torres
Comments: 14
Kudos: 21





	Pigs may fly...

Disorientated. B’Elanna didn’t know where she was- her first instinct was to punch at the nearest alien, of which there seemed to be many swarming around. She swallowed back bile and tried to stay calm. This wasn’t the Ocompa. It wasn’t like that. 

  
Calm. Anything but. She shifted her arm over her belly, her sudden awakening leaving her base instincts in charge. The baby kicked, as if she heard her mother call out to her and let her know she was with her. 

She sat up, the universe was rolling around her. Nothing was level but, something wasn’t right. Other members of the crew were letting the aliens help them but- something in her shouted to be on her guard. That something dreadful was happening here.

She couldn’t see Tom. She turned and looked for him. 

No he had to be here, he was on the escape pod before hers- she’d seen the hatch close as she rounded the corner and made eye contact with him for the briefest moment. Tuvok had ordered him on to the pod. Tom was verging on insubordination waiting for her-. Time ran out before she got there. That last sight of his face through the slither of hatch before-.

Before maybe she never saw him again. 

She tried to get up but found what felt like dozens of hands pushing her back. 

“No, don’t move. You need to stay down.” Someone told her, trying to sound kindly but all she heard were patronising tones.

Before she could object she was injected with something. She grabbed at her assailants wrist.

“B’Elanna!”

He sounded wild, with fury and fear. He was here. He was close. 

“Tom!” She called out to him, her strength more depleted than before. More hands pushing her down.

She could hear him struggling.

“Sedate her!” One of them yelled.

“What about the child?” another asked.

“Sedate her now!” they snapped back.

She struggled. Listening as Tom shouted for her, louder since hearing her voice. Desperately trying to get to her. 

They were keeping them apart.

The drugs hit her blood stream quickly and as her eyelids slid closed and the last remnants of resistance left her, all she could think was that maybe she’d never see him again.

***

  
Waking in Voyagers sickbay hadn’t felt like much of an improvement. She woke with a start but sat up slowly- sitting up quickly was beyond her these days. She’d been sleeping off the latest treatment to restore her memory.

At first when they told B’Elanna the truth about her life, that she and the rest of the crew had been kidnapped, memories altered and relocated to life on Quarra she denied that it was possible. At least, those were the words she’d spoken. 

Deep down, she had to confess that she had felt incomplete for as long as she could remember. That something was missing and it wasn’t until it was pointed out that B’Elanna could really confront it. 

That her life had been stolen from her. That something at the core of her had been taken. Admitting that yesterday had felt ridiculous but, she’d received understanding when she’d said how alone she felt.

Yesterday when Neelix had shown her the quarters her and Tom shared- it was strange to have small images, pieces of her life come to mind but so much of it still in shadow. Little bites of memory, the light of the television blaring, dinner being on the table, clean sheets and blurs of reports to finish being discarded with whispers in her ear saying ‘come to bed.’ 

It had started to fall into place, but the dream cut to her. Realising how conscious the medical staff were of what they were doing. That they had stolen her life, but they stole Tom from her as well. The disregard for the both of them and- and for their child. They’d made B’Elanna think her child’s father had left- they’d stolen family from her and her daughter. Past present and future. 

It wasn’t grief and confusion now, but anger that threatened to overcome. White hot and threatening to catch the whole damn universe alight. She took a few deep breaths. The doctor was already buzzing around. He hadn’t felt the need to alter his uniform protocols back to standard settings while the ECH part of his programme was running. 

“How do you feel B’Elanna?” His voice was gentle. She got the feeling he was handling her with kid gloves. Yesterday he was positively appalled to find she didn’t know the gender of the child she was carrying. He wasn’t afraid to vocalise that removing that fact from her memory was petty and cruel.

“Strange.” She murmured, trying to displace her anger. 

“How so?”

“I - I remember part of what they did to us.” She, ran her hands over her face, raking her fingers over her cranial ridges. B’Elanna tried to hold onto the images in her mind without having any feeling about them. They might be helpful, even if they made her want to howl with rage.

“On the planet?” The hologram confirmed.

She nodded before she spoke. Trying to stick to the facts. “They kept us apart. Tom was-.” His voice. Was he wounded? Was he being harmed as he shouted? She couldn’t be sure. “He was trying to get to me. Kept shouting for me. They cared more about keeping us apart than-.”

B’Elanna paused. The Doctor nodded, letting her know to take her time. 

“They gave me something, knocked me out. All I could hear was- Tom shouting my name.” They were hard words to get out. Hard to open up one of her intact memories, because of how intense it had been.

“He must have been terribly worried.” The EMH added soberly. He seemed to be running through how Tom must have felt through his matrix. 

“I guess.” She said, before breathing deeply to push back tears. She hated being this emotional. This open to being effected by events already gone by. But she felt so damn hollow. The feeling of being incomplete was rawer than ever, her returning memory was in salt in the wound. Knowing that she had been so cared for, and to have that taken away. Whether B’Elanna remembered it or not, she wanted it back. She wanted him back. 

“This is crazy-.“ She finally managed as the EMH perched next to her on the bed. “How can I miss someone I don’t remember?”

“Because your subconscious is telling you something vital is missing. You and Tom have been together nearly four years, even without the memories the emotional, physical and chemical changes involved would be unsettling.” He made it sound clinical. Like all emotions could be reduced down to a biochemical process.

He picked up a tricorder and scanned her, taking note of her elevated blood pressure and stress levels. She realised this was as close as he could get to empathising. That he was confirming she was not in control of those feelings. B’Elanna wondered how Tom would have consoled her. She wondered how he was with her in any circumstance. 

“What’s he like?” She asked. 

The Doctor paused and snapped the Tricorder shut. “Well-he’s-.” He didn’t let the first observations that occurred out of his vocal subroutines. He had the appearance of hesitation. 

“He’s what?” She asked, her voice a little firmer now. 

“He is opinionated, stubborn and immature.” Her eyes narrowed, unsure why anyone would start off with those statements. “He’s also capable of tremendous acts of friendship.”

Reaching for a hypospray, he continued. “He is- surprisingly one of the kindest people I have encountered. And- he loves you very much.”

He injected her and put the hypo to one side.

“Did he tell you that?” B’Elanna asked rather skeptically.

“He doesn’t have to.” The hologram concluded. “I’m not surprised he was ready to tear down walls to get to you.”

He then moved on from the conversation. “You’ll need another treatment in around four hours. Until then, I suggest you eat something. Please try to keep your blood pressure in check. It is a concern.” 

She didn’t respond, she was clearly still thinking. “B’Elanna?”

Snapping out of her train of thought- “I need to remember. It’s like it’s on the tip of my tongue. I know it’s there- I try to remember and- it fades.”

She stood, stretching her back out. “Do we have- audio, visual records?” 

“Crew logs, professional and personal -yes.” The doctor confirmed.

“With your command programming- could you give me access?” She knew that was asking a lot, but surely he’d see it was for a good cause.

“Well-,” His ethical decision making subroutines mulled it over for a moment- “in normal circumstances I wouldn’t allow this. But-.” He walked to the console and tapped in a few codes. ‘There. You have access to Toms personal log entries.’ 

“Doctor, report to the bridge.” Came the hail from Harry Kim.

“On my way Ensign.” The Doctor replied, he hesitated a moment before leaving, at least able to give B’Elanna space to listen.

As the Doctor strode out of sickbay, she stood at the console watching the years of logs display in a long list. She gleaned from the records alone certain information. That Tom didn’t keep a log every day. From the amount of times he paused and resumed his logs- he liked to think about what he entered into the record.   
She came across a stardate that was just shy of being four standard earth years old. That date- she couldn’t say why she picked it but with a few swift taps the recording started.

“Lieutenant Paris personal log. Stardate-,” He hesitated to think before adding with irritation, “Ah hell. Who knows?”

There was a sigh. A pause. 

“Oh Three Hundred.”

Tom paused again. 

“I’m trying to wrap my head around this-.“ 

“Computer, Pause.” B’Elanna found herself saying urgently.

She had hoped that might be comforting, but instead it unnerved her more. Hearing that voice, knowing that was the voice of the bartender who’d befriended her. The voice that in her obscured memory was shouting for her in distress.

She couldn’t listen to him speak. Not yet. 

But the contents were too good to not know. To know his thoughts, his hopes. She reached for a padd and downloaded the text instead. 

She could at least read and get a handle on things that way.  
**  
Lieutenant Paris personal log. Stardate- Ah hell. Who knows?

Oh Three Hundred.

I’m trying to wrap my head around this. Around- what B’Elanna said to me out there.

I’ve been trying for the last six hours but now it’s officially the middle of the night and- I still don’t get it.

It’s funny. I came onto this ship relatively content to be who I was. Sure, it was a new start- I get a commission and a position that would have meant something to my father.

And maybe it meant something to me. But I had my head full of bravado and chasing the next- well. 

I was still that bratty admiral’s son, if anything being on a second chance made me cockier. 

‘I put Ricky in all my programmes.’ I really thought I was impressive.

Then it happened. The thing that swung everything over. That first time I ran the Sandrine’s programme for everyone.

B’Elanna called me a pig. In front of all the command staff. I brushed it off, but no one ran to defend me. No one told her to lighten up -it was just good fun. There was just a tense moment.

But it passed. 

At least for everyone else. Why would she say that? Was she that uptight? Did she not know how to relax?

Why the hell would she call me a pig?

Maybe she held a grudge. Maybe me turning on the Maquis meant I was marked for life in her eyes. Maybe she wasn’t a very forgiving sort of person.

Well, to hell with her. I didn’t need her approval.

Didn’t I?

She’s the chief engineer. Her opinion matters. She’s got a whole department that listen to her. She keeps the ship I fly in one piece.

She’s half Klingon. Regardless of what she might say about that- she values honour. She believes in being truthful. 

She wasn’t making a point. She was just observing, reacting. She was right. I hadn’t given her a second thought before then- not in any way. She didn’t like the hologram I programmed hitting on her. That I was such a pig I felt the need to extend that into an avatar.

I- I made her uncomfortable. I barely knew her and I thought I was being dazzling and amazing and was bringing everyone together with my holo-programming. The gigolo trying it with the Captain was funny but- geez. 

All B’Elanna did was say what she saw.

And when I finally caught up to that revelation- I was reprogramming Sandrine’s at oh-four-thirty. I might not have been ready to change me yet, but the holograms were easy. 

I didn’t apologise. I didn’t change my outlook towards other women. But every time I spent more than thirty seconds with her I reminded myself not to get called a pig again. To not start flirting with someone who really didn’t want it. To stay professional.

She had drawn up that boundary and I was not going to be the kind of –pig- who would overstep. 

But things changed. 

Seska turning out to be a Cardassian and aligning with the Kazon. That hit her hard. She never said, but Harry and I started making sure we always had room for three at our table. 

Then the Vidiians. I hate thinking about it even now. How vulnerable they made her. They tore her right down. I did everything I could- and it wasn’t enough. 

Afterwards, I walked a tightrope of not being a pig and not being haunted by how she’d been. How once you strip away that exterior-.

I stopped wanting to be everything my father wanted for me. I assumed if I was back in Starfleet I’d simply become everything he thought I should be. 

But my life isn’t like what was planned for me. I started to realise for the first time that my life is my own. All those expectations and legacies- I’m free of them. When I stopped believing I needed to be something I’m not- I started looking at everything differently. 

Including her.

And I knew there was something about her. Something I didn’t see before. 

I found I wanted to spend time with her. I like her company. I like her sense of humour. Her compassion. Even her temper-.

When I finally decided I wanted to try and ask her out- I nearly defaulted back to pig. Funny how we move back into the familiar. She turned me down flat. 

Well, I didn’t think it’d go well the first time. Second. Third. How we talked to each other changed. I aimed for charming and came out as antagonising. Turns out we know how to get at each other. 

But that’s all I thought it was. She kept saying no. The only time she said yes- she didn’t mean it. She wasn’t in control. Every time she insisted she wanted me I thought about what a pig I am. About how vulnerable she was.

I held firm and we stayed friends. But I wanted more. I wanted to be worthy of her.

Computer Pause log.

00.01.07.23

Computer Resume log.

I purged Ricky out of the holodeck. I should have done it months before but, it felt like real progress. 

We fought. We flirted. It didn’t go anywhere. But we- we were comfortable with it. It was great. Schrödinger’s girlfriend. Until I ask- B’Elanna’s both with me and not with me. I know it sounds pathetic but- she wasn’t ready. And I could wait- until she thought I was worthy.

At least, I could have waited. I care enough to check in with her. To try and spend every damn spare moment with her but- we fall out. It gets too much and I have these moments where I don’t want to be near her any more. Because I can’t take the idea that this is going to end in rejection.

And that means something. It means I care more about what she thinks of me than anyone else in the universe. I care more for her than-. 

I couldn’t bear the idea that- that I could fall for her and she doesn’t feel the same way. 

Because any minute she’ll realise I’m still a pig. And when she does this would all come crumbling down. That I can’t be good enough for her. That I’m not worthy.

And then- today.

Wait, yesterday by now. 

Hanging in space dying and I ask if she thinks I’ve changed.

Goddammit she made a joke and called me a pig again. And it cut right to me. And the look in her eyes when she realised how much that hurt me. 

Just us. No more pretenses. I held her- as well as I could with us both in EVA suits. I just wanted to be worthy before I died.

Then-.

She loves me.

I wasn’t ready to hear it.

Because I was worthy and I didn’t know it. And when did this happen and—and so much I want to say but all I could think is why did she make me wait until we were on the verge of death?

I’m not-.

I don’t-.I don’t know where this goes now. 

Computer Pause log. 

00.02.58.47

Computer Resume log.

I have to be real about this. She was oxygen deprived. She was dying and upset and- and maybe she thought she was doing something nice for me in those last moments. Maybe B’Elanna was trying to be a better friend to me than I could ever be for her.

I don’t know if she meant it. 

But- I do know I can’t be a pig about this. I can’t rage about her not meaning it. I can’t get angry that she held out on me if she did. 

I guess it’s one of those life defining moments. And in my experience they’ve almost all been bad. Either- I’ve changed enough for someone who thought I was-. 

Either, I changed and I became worthy. Or- Or I can never change enough. 

I can’t sleep. I close my eyes- and she’s in front of me. Floating in that EVA suit- I can see the star light in the tears in her eyes. 

I’d forgotten what it’s like to really- ache for someone. When you feel it physically. Like there’s a Gormagander sat on my chest. 

I’m not infatuated.

Well- I mean I am. Completely. Who wouldn’t be? But that’s only part of it. 

This is going to be uncomfortable. I hate making her uncomfortable. But if she meant it-. I can’t let it rest.

No, no. Don’t be a pig Tom. Give her space to think it through. 

Goddamit did she even mean it? Schrödinger’s romance. She both loves me and doesn’t love me up until the point I ask.

Oh God I don’t want to ask. I don’t want to do that to her- I don’t want to do that to me. 

Computer Pause log.

00.26.17.55

Computer Resume log.

B’Elanna, how did you do this to me? How did you weave yourself into every- every atom of my universe? How have you made me feel like my life depends on you meaning what you said? 

How could I ever bear to be without you?

Computer- End log.

*****

Her eyes kept scanning on those last sentences. Looping over and over. At first being startled that she was being addressed

Part of her wanted to listen to the log now, to hear how he sounded when he spoke those final words. But what if they weren’t softly said? What if he was raging when he spoke and they sounded unbearably harsh? At least this way, the message got through without feeling the entirety of the emotional content. 

B’Elanna hadn’t expected to feel so close to a four year old log, but Tom had picked apart his feelings- the idea that he had gone through great change, and that she had been the catalyst for that. 

A small smile crept over her, of course- without reminding himself to not behave like a pig had meant he had been flirting like hell with patrons at the bar, but he had been so kind, so caring. 

She knew one thing. 

She needed to know what happened next.

**

Two days later…

Trying to put her fears to one side, B’Elanna entered the mess hall, to find Neelix trying to keep the newly returned crew calm. There was a lot of confusion. Crying. Anger. Bewilderment. But they’d be ok. They’d just have to work through it.

Her eyes scanned the crowd, waiting for the moment she saw him. Knowing any moment she’d get an answer to her question- “What about the guy who recorded these logs?”   
Schrödinger’s husband. Until they see each other- he both is and isn’t the man he’s supposed to be.

There he was. Stood by the replicators- a grim expression on his face until he locks eyes with her. He smiled weakly, but his blue eyes lit like solar flares. 

She couldn’t return a smile. Her feet felt heavy, her stomach pitching. She couldn’t take another step forward. Instead he went to her, relief seemingly overwhelming. 

“Are you OK?” He asked, he reached for her taking her face in his hands before thinking about it. “I was so worried.”

Her words stuck in her throat. Because that had felt like the most natural thing for him to do. 

A moment later he realised he’d exhibited a very tender gesture to someone who was almost a stranger-.He moved his hands away, trying to understand why he had done that, why that had been his automatic response to seeing her. His subconscious had got the better of him. 

As he moved his hands away, she reached up and clasped them in hers. He tried to speak but- it was like his brain had hit a brick wall. 

“It’s ok,” she said softly, “It’ll be ok.”

Tom paused, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. His subconscious had over ridden for a few seconds, and now he was trying to push back and break through to his missing memory. Overflowing emotion. There was something about her that drilled right down into him that was indelible, even with so much of his mind scrubbed of his life.

“I- I love you.” He uttered, confused by his own statement. 

She nodded and smiled weakly- she couldn’t bring herself to say it back. B’Elanna couldn’t remember him ever having said it so directly before. He was trying to process emotions he had no explanation for, and right now that was the biggest thread of his real life available to him. That was the way back. 

She reached for his cheek, stroking. Letting him know this was ok. 

“It’s real isn’t it?” Tom asked for reassurance. “Us- this isn’t something they’ve put in our heads?”

“It’s real.” B’Elanna replied, she started to feel the hint of a smile coming to her. 

He hesitated again, as his brain ran through all the implications of the life he’d been stolen from. “She’s mine isn’t she? The baby?”

She never- Tom couldn’t have known. B’Elanna hadn’t known the baby was a girl after her memory had been altered, so how did he? Her mind reeled with the realisation- that he had retained parts of himself. That his desire to look after her and her child were based on what was left of his feelings towards them. 

It really was going to be ok.

Slowly she nodded, feeling the weight of being alone lifting, like the air cleared and shadows were chased away. 

“Yeah- she’s ours.” 

**Author's Note:**

> That'll do pig. That'll do. 
> 
> Thanks for talking this one up team, I took a few of the concepts and ran with them. You're all wonderful. Yeah, even you.


End file.
